March 24, 2013 - Palm Sunday

Valet will ich dir geben - Max Reger
Ride On, King Jesus - Alice Parker and Robert Shaw
Requiem: "Agnus Dei" - Giuseppe Verdi

Hymns: #154 Valet will ich der geben,
              #458 Love Unknown, #170 The Third Tune

Palm Sunday creates the need to capture the majesty and joy of the Triumphal entry and the sadness of the Passion story. The service starts with the pomp and circumstance of Max Reger’s setting of Valet will ich dir geben which is the processional hymn All Glory Laud and Honor. This setting by Reger is filled with contrast and sets the tone for the quick shift in mood that happens during the service. This chorale prelude does not bear Reger’s typical fluctuating dynamics but rather has terraced dynamics. This through back to the musical style of the Baroque is easily achieved on the organ by setting up each manual to play at different volumes. The piece still bears Reger’s characteristic harmonic style. The tune is clearly present in the soprano part with winding, chromatic alto and tenor parts. The pedal line jumps all over sometimes acting as a melodic line and sometimes providing rhythmic interest through jumping octaves.

In 1907 Max Reger(1873-1916) was appointed music director and professor at the Leipzig Conservatory.  He maintained his demanding concert schedule and resigned the post of Music Director in 1908. He retained the position as Composition professor until his death in 1916. In 1911 Reger took a position in the court of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. He was one of the leading intellectuals of his time and the patron of Meiningen Court Orchestra, Europe’s leading orchestra. In 1915 Reger moved to Jena but made weekly trips to the Conservatory. He died of heart failure in 1916. He is primarily remembered as a composer of organ music but many of his choral and chamber works continue to receive regular performances.

Ride On, King Jesus is a traditional Spiritual arranged by Alice Parker(b. 1925) and Robert Shaw(1916-1999). Alice Parker has had an amazing career as a conductor, composer, and teacher. Her arrangements (often , as is the case with this piece arranged with Robert Shaw). She continues to run a non-profit group which helps fund her work as a conductor and clinician and directs a professional choir which has made numerous recordings. Robert Shaw is one of the most celebrated choral conductors of our time. Shaw has received every award and accolade available to a conductor including fourteen Grammy Awards, the first Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to a conductor and was a 1991 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. Shaw is one of the most influential choral conductors and teachers to date. His collaboration with Parker added a great deal to the concert repertoire. They first met when Parker was one of Shaw’s students at Julliard. Their arrangements of spirituals, hymns, and folk tunes are typically a cappella and very singable, free of difficult harmonic shifts and hard passage work. This arrangement has two verses and a refrain which is repeated and slightly varied. The first verse describes King Jesus on a “milk white horse” which is not the modest donkey which he rides in on at the triumphal entry but the steed of a king. The horse he will ride when he returns. The second verse tells us how to get to heaven – we must trod the gospel highway. The repeated phrase “no man can hinder me” serves as a reminder that it is our choice to follow God and no one can keep us from doing so.

Giuseppe Verdi(1813-1901) first began thinking about the text of the Requiem mass in 1868. Verdi and twelve other composers each submitted a movement for a Requiem mass in memory of Rossini. The project was completed but abandoned before the performance. Verdi again turned to the Latin Mass for the Dead when the Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni died Verdi decided to write a Requiem. He incorporated the Libera Me from the previous project in this new Requiem for Manzoni. This piece is not designed to be performed in the context of a liturgical service but instead as a concert work. It is essentially an “opera mass.” The fifth movement, Agnus Dei, opens with a haunting duet between the soprano and mezzo-soprano soloist in octaves, a cappella. The choir enters on the same melody in unison. The soloists and choir continue to trade back and forth before singing altogether on the last line of the text.